Netflix sparks privacy row after making fun of users of Twitter

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Let’s be reasonable. You have to cut the Netflix tweet writer a teensy bit of slack.

Watching just a few minutes of the Netflix production “A Christmas Prince,” snowflakes and ball gowns and betrayal—followed, in classic rom-com style, by betrothal, when royalty dips to his royal knees in the slush holding out a gumball-sized engagement diamond and all that, is enough to make your pancreas squirt, it’s so treacly sweet.

But publicly poking fun at the 53 people who’ve watched this holiday hokum every day for two and a half weeks?

To the 53 people who’ve watched A Christmas Prince every day for the past 18 days: Who hurt you?

In response, a Netflix spokesman pointed out to the Telegraph that nobody got named publicly; rather, the Tweet was based on “overall viewing trends” that are apparently fair game:

The privacy of our members’ viewing is important to us. This information represents overall viewing trends, not the personal viewing information of specific, identified individuals.

Privacy aside, its members’ viewing habits are solid gold to Netflix, which 10 years ago crushed the industry of video rental stores and now dominates the streaming market. It certainly seems to want to keep people coming back, pouring money as it does into original content, from award winners such as Orange is the New Black, House of Cards, Stranger Things, 13 Reasons Why and scads of other must-see shows.

The Telegraph claims that gathering customer data is just as, if not more, lucrative for Netflix than monthly fees. When Netflix allows users to share logins, for example, the separate profiles create separate data sets that are specific to each individual viewer.

Trevor Timm, executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said this all raises a series of questions worth asking:

Some questions for reporters to ask Netflix:
—How many employees have access to people’s viewing habits?
—Are there any controls on how they can access this data/what it can be used for?
—What’s the punishment for creeping on people?
—Why are they publicly shaming customers? https://t.co/bnouaaGnZC

At any rate, “The Christmas Prince” teasing is just one of a string of similar messages from Netflix following the release of similar data in its Year in Review – or, as Netflix titled it, 2017 on Netflix: A Year in Bingeing.

Don’t feel singled out if you were one of the people who watched “A Christmas Prince” more than most. You’re joined in being publicly (though not in an individually named way) teased by a number of people in other outed categories, including one pirate-obsessed person who Netflix says it’s “still scratching our heads about”:

The person who watched Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl 365 days in a row (streamin’ me timbers?). An impressive feat, especially as the average member watched around 60 movies on Netflix this year.

Is Netflix’s choice to arbitrarily release data like this funny? Creepy? Offputting?

I’ll take Door No. 3, said one observer:

I guess to clarify, what I find creepy is not that they collect this data, but that the threshold for releasing it is arbitrary. In this case, if the number is accurate, they released user data because they found it funny. That’s offputting to me.

17 comments on “Netflix sparks privacy row after making fun of users of Twitter”

Comments like “In this case, if the number is accurate, they released user data because they found it funny. That’s offputting to me.” do not help inform the conversation at all, because the *did not* release any “user data”. Calling aggregate data like this “offputting” is like calling the U.S. Bureau of Labor monthly employment statistics “offputting” since they are releasing “private data” about who is unemployed. Obviously, this comment is false and would be somewhat farcical – but it is exactly the same as what these people are saying of Netflix.

Unless these reporters have evidence that the social media team – or anyone else for that matter – had access to the actual account IDs who viewed this film, then this is all much ado about nothing.

Yeah, except the Bureau of Labor doesn’t post their stats then say, “For those of you freeloaders without jobs: hows the government cheese?” Not even the same thing. Implying that viewership of Netflix’ own programming is an indicator of abuse is just childish and, well, douchey. Maybe someone Netflix forgot that those 53 customers pay their salary. Excuse me, but I need to go home, get all my devices streaming some quality Netflix programming and go out for a run.

I don’t know. For all intents and purposes the people they “exposed” are sort of fictional. Sure, there is a real person that watched Pirates of the Carribean every day of the year. But that person already knew that before hand, and no one else knows who that person is now either. And it looks like Netflix doesn’t know either. All they know, and all we now know is that such a person exists. If I look at the box office returns of 50 Shades of Grey I could probably figure out a rough number of how many North Americans went to watch it (not counting repeat viewings) with a little research. Sure, I don’t know that there is one individual that watched it 23 times, but I still know a certain number of people went to watch it. I don’t know who those people are or anything else about them, but I know they exist. Is that really that different from knowing 53 people watched a certain movie 10 days in a row?

This is much ado about nothing. There is no privacy invasion in Netflix’ original tweet. That would require the ability to identify any of the 53 Netflix users who watched the show. If someone can prove how that is possible from that tweet, please show me.

This isn’t a privacy issue. It is that Netflix choose to highlight a group by ridiculing them. Any paying customer can decide whether what they want to do with the information. Offended customers can take their business elsewhere. This is where offending people can backfire on Netflix. Even light teasing can be misconstrued.

I’m divided between thinking this type of comment from Netflix is harmless and hardly worth the attention given to it, and thinking it’s arrogant in a “we see what you’re doing, ha ha” way that not so subtly infers an imbalance of power, since we customers certainly don’t have the ability to know – in aggregate or otherwise – the viewing habits of Netflix’s social media team, in order to join in the fun. If this is Netflix’s idea of “building community”, then I suggest they raise the bar and tone down the snarkiness. But this is on Twitter, after all, that magical place where cheap shots are never meant to ruin one’s day, but just make it briefly maddening.

Honestly, some people need to chill; those tweets are completely harmless. The only valid point here was made by Trevor Timm when he asked how many Netflix employees have access to people’s viewing habits? I would like to know their policy on that, too.

I agree with the other two comments (so far). The data Netflix is presenting is no different than census data, or the study results you find in a book like Predictably Irrational. There is no individual or demographic data attached to the numbers they’ve released. Things like this can be a distraction from real violations of personal privacy.

It would seem to me that having a single customer watching Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl 365 days in a row is not an indication of someone being obsessed with the show, but of someone who has found a way to “re-sell” access to Netflix. Rather than poking fun they ought to try and find out if someone has found a way to abuse their service.

Some people put videos on a loop for variou reasons. If they didn’t track your viewing habits, then how could they suggest new shows to you. Seems to be a big deal over nothing. All companies sell every bit of info on you they can. Its not how you think, but our habits are categorized and marketed.

What alarming is what it reveals, which is what you don’t know, concerning what they have always been doing with the data. However, I don’t understand why Netflix allowed the public to think it was real data, a simple, easy response would have been, “Whoa, this isn’t from actual viewer data, we just thought it would be a funny post!” That probably would have calmed the storm fairly quickly. It would have also opened the door to more funny tweets from Netflix. There could have been a series of them. Could have gone viral in a good way!